You know, I’m sure I’ve mentioned The Bells by Edgar Allen Poe multiple times, in one context or another, but have I ever actually showcased this poem? Maybe not. It is, after all, famous. You’re probably all familiar with it. But I love this poem, which I think now, looking back on it, was a revelation to me about rhythm in poetry. Plus such great words! Euphony voluminously wells, In a mad expostulation, palpitating air, What a world of solemn thought their monody compels, many fantastic words n this poem besides titanabulation, which is the one everyone mentions.
I literally did memorize this poem when I was in high school, though I certainly wouldn’t be able to recite more than a few odd lines now. Feel a glory in so rolling on the human heart a stone. Don’t ask me why the iron bells stick in my memory!
Poe was another poet born in January, it turns out, back in 1809. I’m familiar with Poe’s locked room murder mysteries, which I don’t like particularly; and with his short stories, which I appreciate but also don’t like particularly. But I do love this poem.
***
Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II.
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III.
Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling.
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV.
Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells—
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—
Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
***
But let’s not stop there. Let’s look for a poem that may be less familiar … hmm. How about this one?
***
Spirits Of The Dead
Thy soul shall find itself alone
‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tombstone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness — for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still.
The night, though clear, shall frown,
And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in the Heaven
With light like hope to mortals given,
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,
Now are visions ne’er to vanish;
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more, like dewdrop from the grass.
The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
Please Feel Free to Share:
Teen Here: I personally favor the “Loud alarum Bells,” myself, from the Bells. However, while the Raven has had a place in my heart since i heard it read aloud in a tone of bitter nostalgia, and Anabell Lee i didn’t even try to memorize, I admit to favoring Lenore. It is a verse unlike any other I know- things like that aren’t written now, even by those who have the skill to do it. It is a glimpse of another world and time, as much as it is a verse of beauty and contempt.
I can quote large passages from it without much work, and the memory of the tone lingers yet.
From the beginning verse:
“Come! Let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung ! —
In anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—
A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.”
And from the last verse:
“Avaunt! To-night my heart is light. Nor dirge will I upraise,
but waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old days!
Let no bell toll! —Lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
should catch the note as it doth float up from the damnèd Earth.”
Also, it’s the verse the awakened me to use of the emdash.
Are you at all familiar with the City in the Sea? It’s never been as memorable as it ought, but boy is it descriptive. And who could forget Tamerlane, or Ulame?
Teen, I didn’t remember seeing The City in the Sea before I looked up Poe’s poetry for this post. I almost posted that one.
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
The thing that strikes me is that I think of M-dashes and Emily Dickenson, but it turns out Poe was using M-dashes almost as much:
No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
The rest of the poem at the link. It’s worth clicking through, but this is a poem with a horror vibe, perhaps unsurprising given Poe’s stories.